Scar Marks the Spot
by Talented but Lazy
Summary: Request: Where, instead of stopping at one organ pull attempt, Kaneki tries again, and again, and gets more and more successful, but still can't kill himself because well, his body's regeneration is crazy. So, after a while, he starts doing it for the feeling, not the actual getting-rid-of-organs thingie. Warning! Blood and extreme self-harm, but it isn't lethal.


_Gift for Ellesra_

* * *

After he bent the first knife, Kaneki took out another one. This couldn't be happening. He had to try again.

Hide was going to be there any moment, he had to hurry.

Knife after knife after skewer went and Kaneki didn't have a single scratch. He slumped against his kitchen counter in the middle of a pile of bent sharp metal. All his cutlery was rendered useless. Not that he'd be needing any of it if he really was what he feared he had become.

There was a ring on the door, quickly followed by another few and Kaneki finally got up to answer it, making sure to close the kitchen door.

'Yo, Kaneki,' Hide greeted him when he opened the door a bit.

'Hey, Hide...' Kaneki greeted back. Hide's eyes slightly narrowed at how shaken he sounded. 'Could we do this some other time?'

'Not feeling like Asian history, huh?' Hide asked and Kaneki nodded. 'Fine then, but come to school soon. I miss you.'

'See you soon,' Kaneki said quietly.

'See ya,' Hide waved and turned around to leave. For a split second he'd looked sad. Must have been the dim lighting.

Kaneki had barely closed the door before he ran back to the kitchen. He tried a few more times to break his skin, knowing he wouldn't really be able to do it.

Not with anything else, that is.

What had the person on TV said? _Only ghouls can hurt other ghouls_?

That was it.

Only Kaneki could hurt himself.

So only Kaneki could save himself.

He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. Painful butterflies filled his stomach as adrenaline surged through his systems again.

He stared at his phone. 10 pm. He had already sent away Hide, it wasn't going to be a good idea to call him again.

Kaneki took his phone and headed to the bathroom. This was going to be bloody, and painful, but maybe... Maybe he was going to be able to do it.

This time Kaneki took off his shirt, throwing it aside, and stared down at his torso. There, on the right was that ugly scar that was responsible for how things were. No, it was all because of that woman. But she was dead, and Kaneki had to get rid of her organs, somehow.

He hesitated. Stabbing yourself with a knife was one thing. You just have to swing the blade and not back out at the last second, endure the pain and hope you hit the right organ. Well, 'just' is not the best word here.

But bare hands? He had to somehow break the skin, get in deep enough to find the organ, all while not passing away from the bloodloss and pain.

Didn't ghouls have something special that humans didn't have? A weapon of sorts... He remembered Rize had these... tentacles from her back when she attacked him.

Kaneki tried to somehow summon them, but nothing happened, no matter how much he concentrated. Well, that felt stupid.

He looked up, staring into his reflection in the mirror. His left eye was glaring black, a stark contrast to his normal, human, right eye. The sight made him cringe. He looked back down at his scar, a bit of his determination revived.

Kaneki put his fingers on both sides of the scar, sinking them into the scar tissue. The angle was awkward and useless and he wasn't feeling anything besides his feeble nails, so he pressed further.

For every impulse to pull away, to stop this insanity, he pressed harder, sank his fingers into the healed wound, pulled it apart to try pry it apart again.

He hadn't felt when he'd pointed his head up, towards the ceiling, to avoid the sight whenever it finally came... Warm tears raced down his face, mingling with sweat.

Kaneki was heaving through the mouth and only when he stopped to swallow did he finally smell a strange, sweet aroma. He slowly looked down. He'd broken his skin and a bit of blood was trickling down from his scar, painting his fingers red and soaking into his trousers.

Kaneki couldn't resist the urge to pull his fingers away, squirming a bit. He stumbled and had to lean on the sink.

And just like that, the wound he'd finally created disappeared, closing up right before his eyes. If it weren't for the blood glistening on his skin, he would've thought he hadn't really opened the scar.

A memory surfaced in his mind. He'd managed to cut himself on that bathroom mirror... and it had healed just as quickly.

Glass could still hurt him, he didn't have to do this on his own.

He looked up at the mirror again, straight into his mismatched eyes, let the desperation wash over him and he punched the mirror, sending glass flying everywhere. The cuts on his hand disappeared as fast as they had been made.

He grabbed a sharp shard with each hand and leant his back on the nearest wall.

This was going to hurt even more. But this was going to save him.

He took a deep breath and sank the two glass shards into his scar. The pain didn't come immediately, it took a few seconds to process, but when it did register, it made his vision blur. The smell of blood swallowed everything, its sickening sweetness making him dry heave and double over, fingers with glass lodged safely inside his wound. He slid down the wall till his behind connected with the floor.

Exhaling slowly, then taking another deep breath. Repeat.

He still had to cling to consciousness.

Focusing on his breathing, Kaneki looked down at the bleeding flesh with the two shards of glass poking from it.

His movements had moved the glass a bit out of the wound and it was trying to heal around them, but he pushed them in deeper, clenching his jaw from the pain. Perhaps he should've taken something to bite on in case he bit his tongue off- except, well, it was probably just going to _grow back_.

That thought, that ridiculous thought, forced a laugh from his mouth. What he was doing was as normal as what he had become, _of course his tongue would **grow back.**_

He sat like that on the floor, heaving and laughing, starting to get used to the pain in his torso.

When he looked back down at his body, the shards were lying by his side, blood covered everything.

He didn't remember taking the glass out. How did that happen...?

He picked up one of the pieces, looked at it and instead of his own reflection he saw someone else's face, framed by purple.

Kaneki blinked and it was gone, so he lowered the shard back to his scar, and pressed down again...


End file.
